Homes which are heated by burning oil, as are common in the northeastern United States, typically have building code-compliant storage tanks which hold approximately 275 to 330 gallons of heating oil. Heating oil is most often delivered to the home by means of local-delivery tank trucks which hold about 2,800-5,000 gallons of heating oil and have a gross vehicle weight in the range of 32,000 to 60,000 pounds. Since large heating oil delivery trucks weigh more than 26,001 pounds, they are required to have air brakes and must be operated by a driver having many qualifications, as described below. At the customer site, heating oil is pumped from the tank of the truck through a hose pulled from a reel on the truck and to a nozzle at the end of the hose which is inserted into the fill pipe of the customer storage tank. The oil pump is typically driven by the truck engine by means of a power take-off and drive shaft.
Characteristically, oil flows at a high rate through substantial diameter piping and hoses. Generally, the transfer of ownership from one party to the other, for instance, from a licensed heating oil dealer to a home or business owner, is referred to as “custody transfer.” The term custody transfer implicates various requirements that mandate meeting industry and legal/regulatory standards that attend commerce. Consumer protection and/or sales tax laws impose standards on the accuracy and recordation of heating oil transfers. As applied to the process of delivering heating oil to a customer, custody transfer means that the heating oil quantity must be metered and recorded accurately, regardless of variables such as flow rate, temperature and viscosity. A printed record, sometimes called a receipt or a ticket, must be produced showing the quantity delivered for the customer's and the dealer's records and to meet government and accounting system requirements.
The components of a familiar large local-delivery heating oil tank truck which include a high flow capacity metering system that implements custody transfer are commonly required to have a Certificate of Conformance pursuant to the National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP certification) of the National Conference on Weights and Measures, Lincoln, Nebr. A Certificate may be issued based on an authorized tester's determination that the system complies with the standards of the United States Department of Commerce, namely, with requirements set forth in National Institutes of Standards and Technology “NIST Handbook 44: Specifications, Tolerances, and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices.” These requirements are hereafter referred to as the “NTEP certification standard.” The NTEP certificate number is must be engraved on an approved system if it is to be legally used in commerce. The metering system of a truck must also pass the accuracy-of-flow standard and other requirements of state regulators. One way of expressing that a system is compliant with laws and regulations applicable to accurate measurement of residential heating oil deliveries is to say that the system is “weights and measures approved.”
A commercial objective for heating oil dealers is to maximize the utilization of a tank truck, particularly since they presently can cost from $120,000 to $250,000 each. To minimize the time a truck consumes in pumping oil into the customer storage tank, the pumps of tank trucks typically have high flow rates, for example 40-110 gallons per minute. A typical quantity delivered by tank truck may be in the 100-300 gallon range.
Another objective is to minimize the number of times which a driver and truck have to return to the dealer site or an oil terminal, to refill the tank truck. This leads to a desire to have a truck with as large tank capacity as possible. But using a typical large truck can present a problem when a driveway, roadway, or bridge has a load limit below that of the weight of even a partially loaded local-delivery heating oil tank truck.
A mosaic of federal, state, and local laws and regulations—heightened in recent years by homeland security concerns, must be complied with if a dealer owns and operates a conventional heating oil tank truck. They include U.S. Federal Hazardous Materials Regulations relating to transport of hazardous and combustible liquids and laws and regulations aimed at protecting the environment and the public, avoiding fire risk, avoiding terrorist attacks, etc. Periodic vehicle checks are mandated; a driver must make an inspection of the truck at the start and at the end of the first daily use, tire inflation must be systematically checked, the truck must carry a fire extinguisher, etc. State motor vehicle authorities, federal department of transportation officers, local/state police, and homeland security officials are known to make in-yard and on-the-road inspections. Fire marshals and insurers may impose other requirements. A truck which carries hazardous materials including heating oils is required by federal law to display specific kinds of placards on the front, rear and both sides, indicating the class of material which is being carried. In the common parlance, when one says that a motor vehicle must be “placarded,” that communicates that the vehicle must meet certain federal standards which include making the required placard displays.
The driver of a heating oil tank truck driver must be a professional: First, the driver must have a commercial driver license (CDL). That requires passing certain background checks, medical tests, and special driving tests. The driver must meet higher performance standards than regular drivers, both while driving a heating oil tank truck and while driving other ordinary vehicles, including personal vehicles. Time spent driving a heating oil tank truck—referred to as “hours of service”—is regulated. There are federally required random drug tests. In addition, the driver of a heating oil tank truck must have endorsements to his or her CDL license, including those for carrying hazardous materials, for operating a tank truck, and for operating a vehicle equipped with air brakes. Recent anti-terrorism measures require a Transport Worker Identification Card (TWIC) if the tank truck is driven into an oil terminal for a re-fill or onto certain other sites that are deemed important to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Large local-delivery heating oil tank trucks tend to have high centers of gravity compared to non-tank trucks, and the contents might surge or slosh around and induce instability; thus special driver diligence is required.
The requirement for a CDL with requisite endorsements limits the number of people who are available to be drivers of local-delivery heating oil tank trucks. Understandably, a person who meets the requirements can demand higher wages than can a lesser-licensed person.
In general, conventional large local delivery heating oil tank trucks are costly to operate. The trucks weigh a lot and must be kept running during the pump-discharge of heating oil, The trucks get low fuel mileage, commonly in single-digit miles per gallon. Sending a large heating oil tank truck and qualified professional driver to a customer's site is costly in terms of labor and operating costs; and the dollar mark up on a small quantity of heating oil can easily be insufficient to cover the costs.
With the greatly increased price of heating oil in recent years, presently $3-4 per gallon in northeastern U.S., there has been a tendency for less affluent homeowners to decline delivery of 100 or more gallons at a time, because they wish to avoid the dollar outlay. Instead, a number of consumers seek delivery of smaller quantities, even in the range of 1 to 5 to 25 gallons at a time. Heating oil dealers encounter other situations when small quantities could be appropriate. For example, if a consumer runs out of heating oil at an inopportune time, such as in the middle of the night, mobilizing a qualified driver and tank truck, and paying the driver for a requisite minimum number of hours can be costly. Yet, all the customer needs is a few gallons, to last until the next day or two when a driver can make a larger delivery as part of his regular tank truck delivery route.
Dealers who operate conventional large local-delivery heating oil tank trucks are typically not capable of meeting needs for small quantity deliveries of the kind just mentioned: They cannot easily dispense and/or accurately meter small quantities of oil, particularly in the quantities such as 1, 5, 10 or less than 25 gallons while using a large weights and measures approved tank truck. While some large tank trucks may be able to dispense such a small quantity of heating oil, such small a quantity cannot be accurately measured in conformance with NTEP certification standards, in context that the pump and metering system are configured for handling large quantities and high flow rates, as mentioned above.
There is another problem which tank truck-using dealers face: It relates to bad weather conditions which make it difficult for a tank truck to reach certain sites, for instance, when there are snow and ice conditions and the terrain is steep. Typical large local-delivery heating oil tank trucks have rear wheel drive only and are not allowed to be fitted with tire chains (because of the risk of a loose chain penetrating the oil tank). Thus, there can be times when it is physically very difficult to service a customer.
Diesel fuel meets different technical requirements than does heating oil, as explained further below in the Description. Diesel fuel is used in internal combustion engines. Most diesel oil for consumers is sold in roadside service stations. To deliver diesel oil to construction and agricultural vehicles and the like which are in the field, it has been a familiar practice to mount small diesel oil tanks, often a 55 gallon drum, on pickup trucks and the like and to drive to the vehicle location. While typically there is only a pump system for transfer of the diesel fuel from the tank on the truck to the tank of the vehicle, a metering or measuring system of some sort may be used. This kind of distribution mode typically does not involve a commercial custody transfer from a dealer to a customer of the kind that triggers regulatory requirements; and any requirements would not be of the specialized nature relating to custody transfer of heating oil delivery to residential and commercial buildings.
No. 2 heating oil, having a flash point of 126-204 degrees F., is classified as a combustible liquid. Some have improperly characterized heating oil as a flammable liquid—which it is not. Examples of flammable liquids include gasoline (flash point −45 degrees F.) and propane (flash point −156 degrees F.). For the differences between combustible liquids and flammable liquids, and how they are stored, transported and handled, see 29 Code of Federal Regulations 1910.106 and familiar handbook data. Equipment used for higher flash point combustible liquids such as heating oil does not have to meet the same standards as equipment used for flammable liquids such as propane and gasoline. As a corollary, equipment designed for use with flammable liquids may be inappropriate or inefficient if applied to handling combustible liquids.
Diverse manufacturers have commercially offered portable wheeled and skid-mounted systems for transporting and/or pumping oils or other liquids, beyond heating oil and diesel fuel. However, many of the prior art ways of carrying and delivering non-heating oil products cannot be used by licensed heating oil dealers because those ways do not and cannot meet commercial standards and the government regulations and standards mentioned above. Thus, there is a need for a better and more flexible way for accurately delivering small quantities of heating oil to commercial customers in an economic way, where the heating oil is transported and metered in a manner acceptable to regulatory and tax authorities and standards setting organizations.